


Correction

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Problem Sleuth never got that close to Spades Slick, but now, with the gangster locked away, he finds he's the only one Slick's got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the last Kink Meme, and I'm almost a month late on it, but I knew I'd get to it sooner or later.

Authority Regulator is a total asshole, and you hate dealing with him. The guy is just this trigger-happy jerk who views the police force as one big bazooka he can wield against the city. You mean, the city's lowlife. That's how he'd put it, and if you put it a different way, you wouldn't be surprised to have that bazooka pointed in your direction.

So you try to keep your head down and deal with him as little as possible. That's tough sometimes. You're not a lawman, but you consult with the department from time to time. A loose cannon can hit the targets nobody else sees, you figure, and for now, at least, the department agrees with you. You've all got a lot to do, balancing all the gangs in Midnight City. Kingpin's men, the Felt, your average gangsters with no affiliation, they make a lot of trouble. Kingpin doesn't own this place anymore, so his men are closer to being brandless criminals now, and the Felt are practically unpunishable. It's not that they're paying anybody off. It's that they're impossible to catch.

And then there's the Midnight Crew.

You can tell there's nothing Authority Regulator would like more than having those four marched in in cuffs. He's just waiting for the chance to put them where he thinks they belong. And, to be fair, the Midnight Crew are a bunch of criminals. That's what they do. They run speakeasies and they corrupt the media and they stay up all night playing jazz. That's what Authority Regulator rants about. You just keep your head down and try not to disagree with him too much. For a paycheque this steady, you'll agree jazz is a bad influence (as long as you don't have to get specific).

He likes to stalk around his desk when you're sitting in front of it and talk about how he'll bag the Midnight Crew. It's a heady fantasy, and you don't like to interfere with it. After all, the Midnight Crew are the bad guys. The main problem is that while that's true, the Midnight Crew are also... kind of okay guys. At least, Boxcars and Deuce are okay guys. You think Diamonds Droog might be a legitimate psychopath. And Spades Slick is crazy, but sort of a general kind of crazy. It sucks to deal with him, but he's not hurting anybody who doesn't mess with him first. And he keeps the others in check.

It's not something you notice right away. But you think Slick's insistence on keeping a team, and his particular team, stop these guys from being genuine and harmful threats. What would Diamonds Droog be doing if Slick wasn't ordering him around? You guess he'd have a freezer full of pieces of hookers, but that's just an estimation. It might be a couple freezers, and it might not be prostitutes.

The important part is that Slick has this god-complex, this insistence on ruling, not ruining. Sure, they wreck up the place and they take what they want, but Spades Slick has an eye to the public. Regulator is used to guys like Mobster Kingpin, empire goons who wreck what they don't want. Spades Slick keeps infrastructure. He knows he could own it, someday. And he prefers a working city he doesn't own all of to a set of ruins he doesn't. It's surprisingly practical.

He pays off who he can, walks over the ones who can't hurt him, and ignores the ones who might. Despite Spades Slick's legendary blood-thirst, he's more of a bureaucrat than a warrior. You're not sure why everybody thinks he's this monster of a man. He's just this guy. You don't know him all that well, but you think you understand him, which is more than most people can say. So you keep it in mind when you deal with him, and you don't mess with him, so he doesn't mess with you.

There's one thing you know, though. You know Authority Regulator doesn't get Spades Slick at all. And of the two of them, you're not sure who that's going to end up hurting more.


	2. Chapter 2

You were right here when it happened, which is sort of your job these days. You just didn't know it was going to happen, was all. You weren't even on duty at the time. (You have some trouble describing how you do your job, mostly because you and Authority Regulator have some very different ideas on what you do.) So you were just at the bank, depositing that steady paycheque that comes at the price of pretending to hate jazz, when in busts the Midnight Crew.

You made yourself scarce, bunkered down with your hands on your head, and pulled your hat down low. The Midnight Crew swept in, guns out, and went for the back while Clubs Deuce covered the room. You waited for a minute for Deuce to forget what the hell he was doing, and then called him over. "Deuce," you muttered low. "Hey, Deuce."

"Hello!" he replied. He looked kind of excited and entirely brainless.

"Hey, that's a pretty nice gun," you told him.

"I know!" he replied cheerily. "The boss told me to shoot anybody who moved with it."

"Can I take a look?" you asked. He handed it over, full of dopey pride, and you made true to his namesake and clubbed him. He went out like a light, and you caught him before he hit the ground. There was a tense moment as the other hostages cringed away, but the anticipated punishment didn't come. The rest of the Midnight Crew didn't hear a thing, probably because they were all back in the safe filling bags full of shiny things.

You decided to be hardboiled. Over the course of three minutes, before the sirens even started, you got Droog out into the hall and had a fantastic fist fight which culminated in you choking him with his own tie, and delivering a blow that literally knocked his hat off. He went down and you dragged him around the corner and cinched his hands together with the plastic tie from a mail sack. You took his cue stick and gave the gun to a brave little bank clerk to cover him.

Then you did the world's best Clubs Deuce impersonation to pull Slick out, hit the wall, and sealed the vault behind him, locking Boxcars inside. Slick turned, saw you, and snarled. "Problem Sleuth, you son of a bitch-" before you thwacked him with Droog's cue stick. He howled, but you kept going, like a fencer. When he was reeling, you dashed in, wary of all the knives, and cracked him in the temple. And, miraculously, down he went.

You stood in the middle of a bank full of hostages, three incapacitated and one restrained member of the Midnight Crew, and one extremely grateful bank clerk, and thought, _wow. That was so hardboiled._

As it turned out, the police pretty much thought so too. You have no idea how this all happened. You just acted on adrenaline and quick thinking, but the little clerk girl can't stop babbling to any officer who'll listen just how you got Diamonds Droog, or the way you wrestled Spades Slick. You tell her, you got to keep your wits about you in this business, and you think she might swoon.

The badges get the Crew cuffed and start putting them in separate cars. It takes half the force to get Boxcars to come quietly, and in the end, you step in and talk him out, winning yet another acclaim in the MCPD good books. Without his boss and Droog, and with the knowledge that Deuce is gone too, he actually comes along pretty easily. You just gotta know which buttons to push.

Spades Slick wakes up as a pair of uniforms drag him out. He looks dizzy and confused, and his eyes fix on you. "Wait," he says. "Wait- Problem Sleuth-" but then they get him in the car, and you never do hear what he was going to say. Probably "I'm gonna make you pay for this, Problem Sleuth!" That would be so sweet to hear.

And that was pretty much how you ended up in front of Authority Regulator's desk, becoming his new hero.


	3. Chapter 3

"Problem Sleuth," he says, slamming his hands down on his desk. It's a gesture he uses all the time, usually when proclaiming himself to be the law. He's had the occasion to couple it with your name more than once, though, so you're getting your defences ready. A good yell from Authority Regulator is not a thing you really want to have added to your day, which has been extremely rewarding and full so far. He raises his hands, though, softening it into a "what am I going to do with you" motion. This, and accusatory pointing, make up the full range of Authority Regulator's actions.

"I think it's time we come to terms with it."

Are you fired you think you're fired.

"You are just not making enough money here."

...

"And you spend enough time here, it's time we got you a desk."

...

"Well, don't just stand there. Gimme a handshake."

You do, but you are very confused about it. Authority Regulator takes your silence as a nice change and uses it to talk about all the great exploits the two of you crime fighters are going to get up to together, you with a proper rank in the force and him directing you. You frown.

"Uh," you interrupt, "if it's all the same to you, Regulator, I'm good just consulting."

"No, Sleuth," he says, and turns the corner, "the place for you is here."

Okay, all protests against joining the police force aside, _this is a really nice office_.

You tell him you're going to have to think about it, and the two of you enter bargaining mode. By the end of it, you have a rank, but not really that much more to do than you did consulting ("Because hey! We know you're doing something right!"), the office and the desk, and Authority Regulator clapping you on the shoulder like you're his only son and he is so, so proud of you.

You really thought they had loose cannons around so they could, you know, cast them loose when trouble came in. You've never heard of a loose cannon private eye being rewarded for vigilantism before. And certainly not with a rank, an office, and a lot of paid free time.

But, you think, putting your feet up on your new desk, you guess you could get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you saying "That is not how the police work!"? Good for you! You are smarter than Problem Sleuth.


	4. Chapter 4

Dame is both furious and practically exploding with pride. When you tell her how you took down the Midnight Crew, she nearly loses it. That Empathy Magpie is really flapping. But then you get on to the rewards of your hard labour, she stops yelling and starts... okay, she's still yelling, but it's a good kind of yelling. She jumps up and down a bit and gets you to take her out to dinner.

The next day, Authority Regulator takes you with him to meet the mayor. He's a nice guy, but he's kind of vague and you get the feeling he has a lot of nice ideas without a whole lot of grounding in reality. The kind of guy who wants to clean up the streets but doesn't really consider what that'd require. Nice, though. Regulator introduces you as the man who took out the Midnight Crew, and the mayor shakes hands with you and gets a photo snapped by the newspaper guy. Later there's a spread on the Bank Heist Hero and you just feel real damn uncomfortable about it all.

The guys take you out and make a big deal because you really haven't had the time to get together lately. Team Sleuth hasn't been what you thought it would, and it's nobody's fault but your own (and your landlord's, because rent has been killing you). Working with the station meant a lot more money and a lot less time in your office, which meant by proxy less Pickle Inspector and Ace Dick. You give the guy a hard time, but now that you only see him once a month and you deal with Authority Regulator every day, even the crudeness he calls humour is starting to gain the watercolour wash of nostalgia.

They tell everyone (Pickle Inspector proudly, and Ace Dick confrontationally) who you are. This has never been a point of pride before and you're starting to want to tug your collar up to hide. Inspector has a copy of your clipping and shows it to everyone. You love these guys, but sheesh. Can't you just have a night out without overshadowing it yourself?

You've only been a hero for one day, but you are already starting to realize it wasn't you who took down the Midnight Crew. It was your reputation, and now you've got to drag his sorry ass everywhere you go.


	5. Chapter 5

You light on it in the middle of the night, and it's all you can do not to run right out when you figure it out. You think Dame might freak out if you left at 2 am, though, so you wait until morning, head into the office, and when it becomes obvious that you can pretty much latch on to any case you want right now, you head out of the station instead. You'll find some worthy employment soon; right now, you just need to talk to someone who doesn't think you're king of the world.

You flash your badge at the door and they give you a room. There's a table, two chairs, and a whole lot of concrete. Then they bring him out.

You almost didn't recognize him without the hat. His hair's a little wild, and he's wearing the uniform, not his suit. He looks sort of like a skinny striped weasel. He makes it clear in the way he holds his jaw that he wants everyone to think he's just barely tolerating this, and he'll leap into a snarling frenzy as soon as somebody pisses him off enough.

"Morning, Slick," you say, and his lip curls when you talk.

"Come down to gloat, Problem Sleuth?" he asks. The guards leave him like you asked, and they wait outside the door.

"Yeah, that's right," you tell him, just to bait him some more, "I figured you might not have caught on you're actually in the slammer yet."

He laughs nastily. "So're you. How's your new job working out, Problem Sleuth? Big damn hero, huh? Bet you just love that."

"What," you say. "How do you even know that, you're in jail."

"Because everybody in this place won't fucking shut up about you," he growls. "Good job, Problem Sleuth. Somehow you've made yourself even more insufferable than you were before."

"Hey, that's not my fault," you say. "I don't run the newspaper. I would have gone right back to my office afterwards."

"Yeah, you're just a civil hero, aren't you? I hear you even told Authority Regulator where he could stick his job offer. Stuck with your own office and your crappy self-employment and your measly paycheque. All you need for a reward is me put where I can't do any more harm."

"Uh," you say.

"Or- wait, no," and a vicious smile slides across his face, unzippering his piranha teeth, "did you let him put the collar on you? Yeah, sounds like you, you weak fuck, selling out to the cops as soon as you get the chance."

"Hey," you say, but Spades Slick isn't done.

"Yeah, it must be so hard getting your photo in the newspaper and getting to shake hands with Wellmannered Viceroy. I bet your big new office and your name on the payroll's gonna keep you happy for a long time to come. Well, congratulations, Problem Sleuth!" He goes to spread his hands, mockingly, and the chain between them catches. His grin, all enjoyment at your discomfort, suddenly flashes into something else. True anger, vicious frustration, it's just a second but it's there, before he covers it up with a cruel, knowing smile.

"And here I am with the cuffs on sitting in front of you," he finishes, and his voice is low and nasty. "Problem Sleuth's big day. You got me, good work. Now why don't you just turn around and head back to that big office you earned and kick your feet up? As long as you keep kissing Authority Regulator's ass, you won't have to do any work until they let me back out again."

You stand. Now, you're not sure why you came here at all. You thought just hearing him talk would make you feel better, somebody who's got no reason to like you or respect you. Just as a change. But it feels a lot more like you're an ant, and Spades Slick is holding a magnifying glass between you and the sun. You had no idea his words could cut as bad as his knives.

"Yeah, that's right," he says, and his voice follows you, though Spades Slick stays sitting at the bare table, his back to you. "Go on home and let him clip the leash back on, Problem Sleuth. Try to suffer through all those interviews and parades they're throwing. As a favour. You know, for me."

They close the door, and you look back through the wire-woven glass. You can't see where he's looking, but his skinny shoulders are hunched, and he doesn't turn to watch you go. That's fine, you think. You didn't come here because you thought he'd want to see you. You didn't come here to hear him praise you.

But whatever you heard there, it sure wasn't what you expected.


End file.
